pulpTunes Streams Your iTunes Library Across the Web

pulpTunes makes it easy to set up a stream of your iTunes library, password protect it, and listen to your own tunes anywhere you have an Internet connection.

If you want to take your iTunes library with you but you don't have an iPod big enough, you might consider streaming your music collection over the Internet so you can listen to your favorite tunes while at work, traveling, or anywhere else far away from your beloved collection.

There are a number of ways to do this, and most of them are complicated, but pulpTunes makes it easy to set up a stream, password protect it, and listen to your own tunes anywhere you have an Internet connection.

I was a huge fan of ShoutCast back in the day when it was one of the few ways to stream your music over the net, but the problem with ShoutCast was always that anyone could listen to your music and you didn't have any control over what song was playing at what time; it really was radio. Then new services appeared that allowed you to create VPN connections to your home network where you could play your music, or you could set up a complex Web host on your home computer that would broadcast your music just to you and allow you to control the playback.

pulpTunes does something similar, but streamlines the process so you don't have to get your hands dirty configuring the streaming and sharing services that make an app like this possible. Simply install pulpTunes, select your username and password, and you're all set. If you want to customize the app, you can dig into it a bit, but you don't have to in order to get your stream working. The most additional work you'll have to do to use pulpTunes is open the firewall port on your home network that the app uses to stream over the Internet.

In addition to being simple to configure, pulpTunes is also cross-platform and works well on both MacOS, Windows, and even Linux. In Linux, you don't even need iTunes (which is good because it's not supported or available), you simply need an iTunes library XML file that tells pulpTunes where the music really lives. Once you have pulpTunes configured and streaming on the computer that hosts your iTunes library, you'll get a URL with that machine's IP address that you can visit anytime you'd like to tune in.

pulpTunes supports MP3 and AAC files, so it can even handle your DRM-free downloads from the iTunes music store. Additionally, the app supports iTunes DJ, displays the cover art of your music as it plays, and even allows you to download the songs right from your library to your remote computer. The app also allows you to tweak the song buffer, meaning you can increase or decrease the actual play-time of a track based on how fast or slow your network connection is.

If you're looking for an incredibly simple way to stream your iTunes music over the Internet and control it on the other end, pulpTunes is the way to go. Even if you just have a ton of MP3s and you want a way to listen to them remotely, the combination of iTunes and pulpTunes is so easy to set up and use it's a good way to go. The only reason I wouldn't suggest it is if you hate iTunes.